


Price of Strength

by Monarchy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bitterness, Gen, I stress wrote this because I can, Introspection, Lowkey Spite, Possibly OOC, Self-Doubt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monarchy/pseuds/Monarchy
Summary: What happens to the last member of a fractured team?I’m hopeless with summaries, honest. But sometimes I just wonder about how the reunion went down in canon, not even a hint of bitterness and anger?
Kudos: 20





	Price of Strength

Sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder what would it be like if she shattered like glass. Would it soothe her then? 

Her days blend into shades of grey. Nothing went amiss, nothing exciting popped up either. It was just routine; wake up, clean, read, train, and sleep. Sometimes when she’s had a particularly trying day she’d find herself wishing for something. She still doesn’t understand what she’s wishing for, or does she?  _ Perhaps it’s death she seeks yet fears. But really, what does she have left to lose? _ So she throws herself into training, into hospital shifts until she’s too busy to spare a thought for anything else. 

Her reading materials during her down time grows progressively darker, she sees the plot coming from a mile away.. yet, like the trainwreck she is, she ploughs on. Maybe this is her subconscious trying to calm her weary mind when she cries and cries and cries. Cries over the struggles of imaginary people fighting and losing. 

_ She doesn’t feel better. _

She finds herself lingering on the words and the pages describing the protagonists’ struggles. Obsessing over the strength these fictional characters have, that they can remain standing, bent but unbroken. Their downward spiral and subsequent crawl to victory. She knows it’s unhealthy to compare a legend’s life and finds her own washed out, lacking. 

_ What do I lack? Why am I em p t y _

She stares at the self-harm depicted in her readings, her brain supplying images as she reads and reads and reads. She wonders, what does she fear that she couldn’t do the same? She  _ wants _ but she’s afraid, the senbon she’s been idly playing with drops on the table with a clatter. So she stops eating for a time. Perhaps then, she could feel a sliver of what they’re feeling. These fictional characters, these dead men that feel more real than she does. 

_ She couldn’t keep her food down after a week of water. _

Logically, she knows. She’s self-destructing. Oh, how she knows but when she hears her relatives and her peers comforting her with  _ “You’re a strong girl.” _ , she smiles in thanks yet inside she’s seething? Crying? 

_ If I’m strong, then why do I wish to be broken? _

Bitterness coils around her tongue because if  _ this _ is the price of strength, she’d rather be nothing but weak.  _ The weak link of Team Seven, head in the clouds with fairytale dreams-  _ She smiles and deflects the compliment? Pity? She’s forgotten how long she’s been  _ strong _ . 

Sometimes when she feels particularly cynical, she couldn’t help but scoff at the shows she used to love, used to find some form of comfort in and thinks,  _ “Strength isn’t something so trivial, the power of  _ **_friendship_ ** _?”  _

_ She’s been avoiding shades of oranges ever since.  _

She finds a story about forgiveness on her desk. She reads it and hates it. Barely refraining herself from giving a scathing reply that  _ forgiveness isn’t something achievable with  _ **_just one letter_ ** _.  _ But she was naive and hopeful once, she will not take that hope away from someone else who’s crumbling under his failures; even though she could feel the cold fury washing over her with each chicken-scratched word. Who knows? Maybe that’s how forgiveness works but she’s too angry for it. She couldn’t bring herself to reply and say that she’s moved on.

_ She tosses the letter away and replaces that picture of Team 7 with stacks and stacks of scrolls. Two left for strength, one left running from his past and the last left behind-  _

On her good days, spite buoys her actions and thoughts. She plays pretend with the best when she’s accompanying Tsunade-sama in her meetings, learning to quell her tells or be exploited as a weakness in the Godaime’s armour. She searches for other teachers, tutelage for a price or a favour. She may not be a powerhouse like her team- _former teammates_ , but she’ll shine just as bright. She was pegged as a paper ninja and the thing about paper ninjas? They’re **smart and resourceful**. Shishou does not have the freedom nor the time to constantly train her, but damn if she doesn’t make the first person who saw her worthy of _something_ proud. 

Her name is Haruno Sakura and if she’s going to implode under her self-doubt, let it be glorious. She will pay the price for strength in full, discarding her innocence and naivety. There’s no place for those in an army of child soldiers. 


End file.
